April Fever

 Spring fever!


April - William Carlos Williams

If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond the lake was
too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing
against him,
too much of sumac buds, pink
in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen
limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that
springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the
raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.

The Desolate Field

Maybe vast and grey isn't that bad after all...


The Desolate Field - William Carlos Williams

Vast and gray, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and gray, and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
—my head is in the air
but who am I…?
And amazed my heart leaps
at the thought of love
vast and gray
yearning silently over me.

Vast And Gray

 

This poem feels appropriate for a Monday - all that 'vast and gray.' But look, at the end, a brilliant uplifting note.

The Desolate Field - William Carlos Williams

Vast and gray, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and gray, and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
—my head is in the air

but who am I…?
And amazed my heart leaps
at the thought of love
vast and gray
yearning silently over me.

Day 958: Primrose

I always see Tuesday and the number '3' as yellow (synesthesia-related...), so this seems the perfect poem for today Tuesday, 03/03. In celebration of the primrose, via yellow in all its vibrancy, here's  some zest from Mr Williams.


Primrose - William Carlos Williams

Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!
It is not a color.
It is summer!
It is the wind on a willow,
the lap of waves, the shadow
under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
three herons, a dead hawk
rotting on a pole-
Clear yellow!
It is a piece of blue paper
in the grass or a threecluster of
green walnuts swaying, children
playing croquet or one boy
fishing, a man
swinging his pink fists
as he walks-
It is ladysthumb, forget-me-nots
in the ditch, moss under
the flange of the carrail, the
wavy lines in split rock, a
great oaktree-
It is a disinclination to be
five red petals or a rose, it is
a cluster of birdsbreast flowers
on a red stem six feet high,
four open yellow petals
above sepals curled
backward into reverse spikes-
Tufts of purple grass spot the
green meadow and clouds the sky.

Day 930: On the Wing

 

Yes, Spring is on the wing. Winter cannot endure forever no matter how much it seems like it!

 

Aux Imagistes - William Carlos Williams

I think I have never been so exalted
As I am now by you,
O frost bitten blossoms,
That are unfolding your wings
From out the envious black branches.

Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine
The twigs conspire against you
Hear them!
They hold you from behind

You shall not take wing
Except wing by wing, brokenly,
And yet—
Even they
Shall not endure for ever.

Day 915: January Wind

January - a good month for writers!


January - William Carlos Williams

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

Day 862: Winter Trees

 

Winter Trees - William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

Day 854: Design for November

Design for November - William Carlos Williams

Let confusion be the design
and all my thoughts go,
swallowed by desire: recess
from promises in
the November of your arms.
Release from the rose: broken
reeds, strawpale,
through which, from easy
branches that mock the blood
a few leaves fall. There
the mind is cradled,
stripped also and returned
to the ground, a trivial
and momentary clatter. Sleep
and be brought down, and so
condone the world, eased of
the jagged sky and all
its petty imageries, flying
birds, its fogs and windy
phalanxes . . .

Day 702: The Crowd at the Ball Game

Substitute 'ball game' for World Cup and here is a poem that perfectly describes the atmosphere sweeping the globe right now. 

 

The Crowd at the Ball Game - William Carlos Williams

The crowd at the ball game

is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness

which delights them—

all the exciting detail

of the chase

and the escape, the error

the flash of genius—

all to no end save beauty

the eternal—

So in detail they, the crowd,

are beautiful

for this

to be warned against

saluted and defied—

It is alive, venomous

it smiles grimly

its words cut—

The flashy female with her

mother, gets it—

The Jew gets it straight— it

is deadly, terrifying—

It is the Inquisition, the

Revolution

It is beauty itself

that lives

day by day in them

idly—

This is

the power of their faces

It is summer, it is the solstice

the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is laughing

in detail

permanently, seriously

without thought

Day 613: Spring and All

I love how all the lines and all the words in this poem lead to the final revelation of one word: awaken. Yes, spring is a powerful season.


Spring and All - William Carlos Williams

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast - a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines -

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches -

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind -

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined -
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance - Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken 

Day 501: Winter Trees

Ah, the trees are all bare now. Hard to think of them as anything but barren. But as William Carlos Williams points out, they are just asleep, wise in their defensive restful stature. 


Winter Trees - William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold. 

Day 424: What's in a Rose?

 

I love modernist poetry. It messes with your head! By that I mean, it's like a puzzle at first read, but then when the pieces of the puzzle start to come together, you  can't help but be wowed by its nifty cleverness. Like this poem - who would have thought you'd see geometry in a rose? 

Rose - William Carlos Williams
 

The rose is obsolete
but each petal ends in
an edge, the double facet
cementing the grooved
columns of air - The edge
cuts without cutting
meets - nothing - renews
itself in metal or porcelain -

whither? It ends - 

But if it ends
the start is begun
so that to engage roses
becomes a geometry -

Sharper, neater, more cutting
figured in majolica -
the broken plate
glazed with a rose

Somewhere the sense
makes copper roses
steel roses -

The rose carried weight of love
but love is at an end - of roses

It is at the edge of the
petal that love waits

Crisp, worked to defeat
laboredness - fragile
plucked, moist, half-raised
cold, precise, touching

What

The place between the petal's
edge and the

From the petal's edge a line starts
that being of steel
infinitely fine, infinitely
rigid penetrates
the Milky Way
without contact - lifting
from it - neither hanging
nor pushing -

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space

Day 399: Roses in the Rain

from deviantart.com

To cut flowers or not to cut? A very melancholy task  cutting growing flowers from a garden. I always feel selfish after after it. William Carlos Williams feels more than that:


The Act - William Carlos Williams

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don’t cut them, I pleaded. They won’t last, she said.
But they’re so beautiful where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me in my hand.

Day 370: Daisy Dear

 

How many ways to describe a daisy? Let's see...
 
Daisy - William Carlos Williams

The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha! Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves--
The sun is upon a
slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back--
it is a woman also--
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays-- a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!

One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear: brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.

But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.

Day 338: Summer Song

Watch out for that Supermoon tonight smiling down on us!


Summer Song - William Carlos Williams

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer's smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

Wanderer moon smiling a faintly ironical smile at this brilliant, dew-moistened summer morning,— a detached sleepily indifferent smile, a wanderer's smile,— if I should buy a shirt your color and put on a necktie sky-blue where would they carry me? - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20896#sthash.XbzjPXKZ.dpuf

Wanderer moon smiling a faintly ironical smile at this brilliant, dew-moistened summer morning,— a detached sleepily indifferent smile, a wanderer's smile,— if I should buy a shirt your color and put on a necktie sky-blue where would they carry me? - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20896#sthash.XbzjPXKZ.dpuf

Wanderer moon smiling a faintly ironical smile at this brilliant, dew-moistened summer morning,— a detached sleepily indifferent smile, a wanderer's smile,— if I should buy a shirt your color and put on a necktie sky-blue where would they carry me? - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20896#sthash.XbzjPXKZ.dpuf

Day 313: Yum

Sometimes eating something is so damn good you could almost write a poem about it! And lookey here, William Carlos Williams did just that in this infamous ode:


This is Just to Say - William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
and sweet
and so cold

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535#sthash.yNctVU0j.dpuf

SometimI have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535#sthash.yNctVU0j.dpuf

Day 267: March

 

Notorious March, like a lion, with roaring cold winds. Could this really be the start of Spring? But all new growth starts with pain, does it not?


March - William Carlos Williams 

I
Winter is long in this climate
and spring - a matter of a few days
only, - a flower or two picked
from mud or from among wet leaves
or at best against treacherous
bitterness of wind, and sky shining
teasingly, then closing in black
and sudden, with fierce jaws.

II
March,
you remind me of
the pyramids, our pyramids -
stript of the polished stone
that used to guard them!
March,
you are like Fra Angelico
at Fiesole, painting on plaster!
March,
you are like a band of
young poets that have not learned
the blessedness of warmth
(or have forgotten it).
At any rate -
I am moved to write poetry
for the warmth there is in it
and for the loneliness--
a poem that shall have you
in it March.

III
See!
Ashur-ban-i-pal,
the archer king, on horse-back,
in blue and yellow enamel!
with drawn bow - facing lions
standing on their hind legs,
fangs bared! his shafts
bristling in their necks!
Sacred bulls - dragons
in embossed brickwork
marching -in four tiers -
along the sacred way to
Nebuchadnezzar's throne hall!
They shine in the sun,
they that have been marching -
marching under the dust of
ten thousand dirt years.
Now-
they are coming into bloom again!
See them!
marching still, bared by
the storms from my calendar
-winds that blow back the sand!
winds that enfilade dirt!
winds that by strange craft
have whipt up a black army
that by pick and shovel
bare a procession to
the god, Marduk!
Natives cursing and digging
for pay unearth dragons with
upright tails and sacred bulls
alternately-
in four tiers-
lining the way to an old altar!
Natives digging at old walls-
digging me warmth - digging me
sweet loneliness -
high enamelled walls.

IV
My second spring -
passed in a monastery
with plaster walls - in Fiesole
on the hill above Florence.
My second spring - painted
a virgin - in a blue aureole
sitting on a three-legged stool,
arms crossed -
she is intently serious,
and still
watching an angel
with coloured wings
half kneeling before her -
and smiling - the angel's eyes
holding the eyes of Mary
as a snake's holds a bird's.
On the ground there are flowers,
trees are in leaf.

V
But! now for the battle!
Now for murder - now for the real thing!
My third springtime is approaching!
Winds!
lean, serious as a virgin,
seeking, seeking the flowers of March.
Seeking
flowers nowhere to be found,
they twine among the bare branches
in insatiable eagerness -
they whirl up the snow
seeking under it -
they - the winds - snakelike
roar among yellow reeds
seeking flowers - flowers.
I spring among them
seeking one flower
in which to warm myself!
I deride with all the ridicule
of misery -
my own starved misery.
Counter-cutting winds
strike against me
refreshing their fury!
Come, good, cold fellows!
Have we no flowers?
Defy then with even more
desperation than ever - being
lean and frozen!
But though you are lean and frozen -
think of the blue bulls of Babylon.
Fling yourselves upon
their empty roses -
cut savagely!
But -
think of the painted monastery
at Fiesole.

Day 258: The Red Wheelbarrow

Now here'a a famous poem, a real classic - (if you Google 'red wheelbarrow', your first result will be this poem).

 

Why so famous? Well, first off, because of its experimental nature, it caused quite a stir after it was first published in 1923 and long thereafter.

 

It broke a lot of rules and introduced a new coup for Modernist poetry: Imagist and almost Idea-ist. Williams' defining maxim was 'No ideas, but in things' and this poem represents this perfectly - so much depends upon not the ideas buried in the poem, in its meaning,  but the subject matter itself (which is usually merely the means to an end - ie meaning - in a poem) taken at face-value, on its own standing, like a painting would be.

 

The poem's endearing simplicitiy and its speculative content have ensured its popular appeal. Why does so much depend upon the red wheelbarrow exactly?  Does the scene represent something else? Is it making an existential comment? Is its simplicity a cue for imaginative discourse? Or is it, simply, meant to be taken, just as it is? So much depends upon the simple scenes in life, the things that make up these scenes, the impromptu props of living, standing as objects of beauty and awe and thought...?

 

Or maybe it forces us to see that we impose meaning on everything? Maybe it is meaningless?

 

Well, that's the beauty of poetry. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Meaning is subjective, maybe even secondary. Because poetry offers a lot more than that, of which this poem is proof proper.

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Day 252: The Uses of Poetry

The Uses of Poetry - William Carlos Williams

I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,

Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long sway.

For, lest o'ersaddened by such woes as spring
To rural peace from our meek onward trend,
What else more fit? We'll draw the latch-string

And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,
On poesy's transforming giant wing,
To worlds afar whose fruits all anguish mend. 

Day 62: Icarus

Sometimes big things happen and go unnoticed, obscured by small things. 

This is perfectly illustrated in the painting above, Breughel's 'The Fall of Icarus' which shows the mythic character's death plunge from the sky to sea. But you'll have to look closely to see him, head first in the water. It's as if it's a mere insignificant detail in the scene. 

This is very much the case alright with death and hurt and disappointment. People hardly notice. For life must go on after all.  

Here's William Carlos Williams' take on the painting, who manages to structure the poem exactly like the painting, with the fall coming quite casually at the end, a by-the-way footnote. 

 

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus - William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel

when Icarus fell

it was spring

a farmer was ploughing

his field

the whole pageantry

of the year was

awake tingling

near

the edge of the sea

concerned

with itself

sweating in the sun

that melted

the wings' wax

unsignificantly

off the coast

there was

a splash quite unnoticed

this was

Icarus drowning